Title: Imagination
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1,978
Genre: Drama, Character Study
Fandom: Pokémon Gameverse
Pairings: Red/Green, Red/Green/Leaf
Warnings/Tags: Underage, Sexual Exploration, Pre-Canon, Growing Up, Playing Pretend, Childhood, Dubious Consent, Kissing, Discussion/Analysis of Childhood Sexuality, Emotional Tension
Summary: With Leaf dragging at both their hands, they stumble back outside to start a game of freeze tag in Red's backyard; but Green's eyes keep wandering to Red's mouth and getting stuck there. Green's hands keep fidgeting like he wants to grab Red's shoulders again. Red stares back.
A/N: A fill for an original prompt on pokanon: "You know how children tend to play doctor and other perverted games because they are curious and just don't understand yet? Red and Green did that as kids, but as they got older they... Didn't stop. For way longer than most kids. Eventually they did, and after time just plain forgot about it or pushed it out of mind. One day, one of them remembers." I deviated wildly from this prompt (there's nothing explicit in this) but I kept to the spirit of it, I think. This is a expanded version of the original pokanon fill. For DnfTST #34, "Play."
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"A kiss will wake her," Green announces. He leans forward, hesitates for the barest second, and then pecks Leaf on the cheek. She opens her eyes, scrunches up her nose a bit and giggles. Red looks on quietly.
They watched a movie last night, some animated film where love conquers all and the heroine saves the damsel in distress. It's not the first time their pretend games have mimicked movies they've seen or books they've read, but the kissing is new territory. Even Red knows that kissing is somehow too advanced, something only adults do. But when the idea came up, Green's eyes brightened in that way that meant saying no would be pointless, and besides, Red couldn't deny his own vague curiosity. The kiss was the highlight of every movie, and Red wondered what all the fuss was about.
"That isn't right," Leaf protests. "In the movie she kissed her on the lips."
Green's face burns hotter. He leans away from Leaf for a second, his shoulders hunching, before he rushes forward again, squeezing his eyes shut before he presses his lips to hers. Leaf gasps and Green pulls back. "There!" he says, sounding triumphant. "Now your turn, you kiss Red."
Leaf is blushing as hard as Green is, and for a moment Red wonders what his own face looks like. She shuffles around on her hands and knees to sit so close to Red that he has to stop himself from drawing back, one hand resting tentatively on his knee. They look at each other; Okay? Leaf asks, her brow wrinkling, and Red nods.
"A kiss will wake him," she says, and leans forward to press their mouths together. It's nothing special, a little sticky from the juice they had at lunch. Red remembers the closeness of her more than the sensation of her mouth, the new experience of Leaf taking up his entire field of view.
She pulls back and looks down, an embarrassed little smile on her face. Green is looking at them both with a weird expression. There's a long pause.
Red feels like he's done something he shouldn't have, but he's not sure why. It didn't hurt or anything. "I'm awake," he says. "You saved me."
They do it a few more times before Leaf grows tired of it and wanders off to turn the Nintendo on. Red starts to follow after her, but Green seizes his elbow and whispers, "I want to do it again—more, later."
Red shrugs, feeling equal parts trepidation and restlessness. There's still some mystery at the heart of it that he doesn't understand.
Green hesitates, and then he adds, "Without Leaf."
At that, Red gives him a quiet look. They've never played a game without Leaf before.
Then he shrugs again, and watches as Green's ears slowly turn red.
—
Kissing is weird.
It's weird, Red thinks, it's wet and slimy, and the push of a cold tongue inside his mouth makes him flinch back. Green pulls away and Red swipes at his lips with the back of his hand, trying to dry them.
"Do you want to do it again?" Green says, his eyes wide, his hands shaking a little before he balls them into fists. It's the sight of that, the knowledge that Green is as out of his depth as he is, that makes him nod more than anything else.
The second kiss is no better. Nor is the third, or the fourth; but Green keeps pushing for it, keeps making gasping noises against his mouth, and Red doesn't like it but he won't be the first to give up, either. He doesn't know how long they spend in the artificial twilight beneath the corner table, practicing a skill that neither of them really want to master, until Leaf finds them and splits them apart, yelling at them both for ignoring her.
With Leaf dragging at both their hands, they stumble back outside to start a game of freeze tag in Red's backyard; but Green's eyes keep wandering to Red's mouth and getting stuck there. Green's hands keep fidgeting like he wants to grab Red's shoulders again.
Red stares back.
—
After that, sometimes Green only invites Red over.
Green likes the lab coat because it makes him feel big and important. When his grandfather wears a lab coat, everyone falls silent to listen to him speak. Green puts on the lab coat and Red's eyes turn towards him, placid but curious, removing his shirt and lying down on Green's bed before he has to say anything.
The stethoscope is Daisy's, a hand-me-down from a toy medical kit. The chansey in a nurse hat that came with it sits on a high shelf in Daisy's room, its pink coat dimmed to a rosy gray. "I'll going to listen to your heart," he starts to say, but the words stick in his throat because he knows the stethoscope isn't real. He won't hear anything if he presses its diaphragm to Red's chest.
The older Green gets, the more he hates playing pretend. It's just lying to other people and yourself. But they keep doing it anyway, him and Red, old habits they can't break.
Green presses his hands against Red's back, feeling the soft edges of his shoulderblades, feeling the way Red's lungs expand with air even if Green presses down to try and stop them. Red isn't something he can control, even when pretending. Green's mind is a storm of feelings and using his imagination doesn't change any of them.
"Aren't we too old to be doing this?" he says, his eyes fixed on the peeks of Red's skin between his spread fingers.
Red's head lifts from the pillow. "You started it," he says.
Green's hands fall to the bedspread and relax there, fingers uncurling. Red sits up and looks at him, waiting to see what he will do next. When Green doesn't move, doesn't do anything, Red shrugs and tugs his shirt back on over his head.
"Okay," he says.
Green slides the lab coat off his shoulders and Red keeps looking at him, even without it.
—
They're on the road already, racing each other for the championship. Green is tired from beating Koga, but he sees Red in the pokémon center and their eyes lock. Neither of them want to fight right there, so they move outside and face off in a small arena drawn in the dirt.
Before they got their starters, Green and Red faced off like this on Pallet's beach, yelling attacks to their imaginary pokémon, striking poses as if they were battling to the death. As they continue on their journey and Red begins to outstrip him in leaps and bounds, the slow sweeping gestures that Red once made are honed into sharp, precise movements, quick glances, subtle shifts of his weight. Green refuses to change, though, still shouting, still flashing his perfected careless grin. But Red isn't playing anymore when they fight, and Green wishes despite himself that they were still on the beach, stupid kids who didn't know anything, playing at meaningless games. It wouldn't hurt as much when Red beats him over and over.
Red steps toward him after, eyes calm and attentive as if waiting for Green to say what the next move in the game is. Green bites his lip and shoves half his winnings into Red's hands, fighting to hold back tears, and the look in Red's eyes is disappointed somehow.
—
Four Island takes some getting used to after the noise and bustle of his pokémon journey. The people are kind and endlessly nosy, inviting Green over for dinner and shouting greetings at him when they see him fishing on the shore or surfing on the back of his gyarados just outside of town. The day care couple lets him stay in a spare room above the day care in return for odd jobs around the ranch, and for helping them hatch pokémon as he wanders around.
The past year of travel fades in his memory until he sees a familiar cap half-hidden in the tall grass. He stops short, familiar dread rising in his throat, but Red doesn't turn toward him.
Green creeps closer, the grass around him whispering as he pushes it out of his way, until he sees Red sitting cross-legged on the ground with Pikachu in his lap.
He recognizes the story Red is telling Pikachu from one of the many books Leaf had at her house. As he tells it, Pikachu acts out the part of the dashing hero, play-fighting with the air. Red is smiling, his voice soft but animated, telling the story more through the gestures of his hands than with his terse sentences.
Then Pikachu sees Green and stops dead, his paws skidding on the sandy soil. His cheeks spark once, more out of habit than any real challenge. Red turns and stares at him, eyes round with surprise.
For a long moment they just look at each other without saying anything, bracketed on all sides by the waving grass.
Green's team isn't much stronger than they were at Indigo Plateau, and thinking about the inevitable outcome of a battle exhausts him. Besides, no one knows who they are out here. Here, they're just kids.
Instead, Green drops to his haunches beside Red and calls out Eevee. She headbutts Pikachu in greeting and then looks back at her trainer, awaiting instructions.
"You're at the part where they're escaping the palace, right?" Green says, his voice gruff. Red's eyes brighten.
—
Mt. Silver is pitch-black at night: even the stars are blacked out by the diamond dust. The only light is from the cave's small fire.
Green turns over in his sleeping bag and whispers, "Are you awake?" but Red doesn't move.
He pauses, lingering over the taste of the words in his mouth, before he says, "Do you remember when we used to play pretend as kids?" When there's no answer he says, more quietly: "Do you remember how we used to..."
Red's breathing is slow and steady beneath the pile of blankets draped over his body. Green feels choked by the memory of Red's skin warm beneath his hands, the sight of Red's eyes fixed on his without fear.
"Under the table," he finishes. Green swallows hard, shocked by his own daring, then hates himself for how half-hearted it is. He's just talking to himself, and there's no challenge in that.
Pikachu is a curled up ball on top of Red's chest, his bright yellow coat washed out by the lack of light. When he glances back at Red's face he sees that his eyes are open. Green pulls back, startled.
"I remember," Red says.
The fire pops. A few moments pass before Green remembers how to breathe again.
"Do you want to again?" Red asks. His voice has been carefully emptied of inflection.
"I—" Green's hands clench and unclench. Red is waiting for him, has always been waiting for him. "I don't want to play pretend anymore."
Red hums, agreeing. "Me neither," he says.
"But I still want to," Green stammers, "I still want—"
Red scratches at his nose, his expression thoughtful and determined. Then he scrunches towards him over the cave's smooth stone floor, wiggling beneath the pile of blankets like an inching weedle. Green watches him come closer, a helpless laugh bubbling in his throat.
"Red," he says. It's all he can think to say.
Red nods, as if to say I'm here, and reaches into Green's sleeping bag to withdraw his hand and press his cheek against it.
"Not playing," he says.
"I mean it," Green replies, unable to hide the fright in his voice. Touching Red has always felt like balancing on the edge of a precipice.
"Me too," Red whispers, and Green closes his eyes and lets himself fall.